Day 6 Meditation Might

I have all these books on Pelvic Pain. They all suggest some form of meditation. Headache in the Pelvis has a zillion pages just on meditation which is the core to their program. For months I cut out articles about various ways to mediate but continued to drag my feet on doing this.

I started walking with a friend who meditates. She told me how she did it and what she felt were the benefits. She copied a tape for me to get started(which I already had several). I already had the breathing down so it was just another simple step forward.

I have been mediating for maybe 6 months. I do it first thing in the morning before anything else except going to the bathroom. I found the more I did it the longer I wanted to do it. It was such wonderful deep relaxation. I set the alarm on my cell phone. I started out with 10 minutes then I wanted it to be longer and longer. I also found that the time flewwwwww by. Plus my pain would almost disappear.

I am finding that my list of sad, angry, or afraid events is getting longer and longer every day. I find that the little "tidbits of memory" have ended up being extremely important to my understanding of my childhood experiences.

Sandy, you inspire me to take meditation more seriously. It's on my "should" list (and I know that Lori will tell me to stop shoulding on myself, LOL).

Like you, I also found that it was the little events and incidents, the ones that seemed, at first thought, to be unimportant, which turned out to contain the gems which helped to explain who I am in the world. I like to advise people, when they first start making their lists or journaling, to not let their brains tell them "oh, that's not important, don't write THAT down", because those are the very things that we DO need to look at! Even though they are small and non-traumatic in many cases.

This program has finally inspired me to get serious about meditating, and now I am actually enjoying what I used to avoid. It is so relaxing. I'm wondering if maybe in future there could be more on it in the SEP?

The dragging of the feet was related to the fact I couldn't figure out how to get my mind to shut-up.... well, it never does. I focus completely on the breathing. Thoughts always come into my mind and I gently refocus back to the breathing. I read where we have 60,000-70,000 thoughts each day. Basically the meditating is just slowly that down. You still have thoughts all the time. Just not as many.

The Headache in the Pelvis recommends tying your breath count to your pulse rate. They have a little formula to compute this. I have a high pulse rate in the low 90s so my breath count is 8 in and 8 out. Also at the bottom of the exhale I periodically slightly pause to continue to slow the breathing down. I don't listen to music. I like to hear my heart beating and feel my pulse pushing blood through my body. This body is pretty awesome.

I have become fascinated with meditation. I am amazed how strong my lung muscles have become to the point I control the shape of my lungs either breathing out or breathing up.

I, too, am proud to be able to say I have made meditation a daily part of my life. Over the past 20 years, I read tons of books that all pointed to its importance, but I was never able to commit myself to it regularly. I only dabbled off and on. About 7 or 8 years ago, I had a therapist who was a Zen Buddhist and she seemed to be the most calm, loving person I had ever met. She tried to get me to meditate for my anxiety and remind myself to "Be here now" constantly. I never got it then. She used to tell me that if I could make meditation a habit...as much a habit as brushing my teeth...that it could change my life.

TMS pain...both emotional and physical...became my best motivators. I now try to remind myself that my midlife crisis, along with 18 1/2 years of chronic pain, are gifts in that they led me to begin a serious meditation practice over a year ago. I started with 5 minutes, and now am doing 30 minutes very morning. I light some incense, set my meditation timer on phone (a meditation timer download I found online), repeat a mantra while focusing on my breath, and allow the thoughts to float by like clouds. Honestly, it is one of the best things I have ever done for myself. For me, it is a true expression of self-love.

It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one who was at first skeptical of meditation. I had tried it before in the past and never really got it either. Today I am on Day 6 of the structured educational program and meditation was one of the components. I set my timer for 5 minutes. It actually went by pretty fast. My mind was fairly quiet and I actually felt very relaxed afterwards. It's encouraging to hear that you are up to 30 minutes! Thank you for sharing your story.

Meditation was absolutely the BEST thing I have done for my anxiety. It took me a while to get the hang of it and of course, as per my perfectionism, I was worried that I wasn't doing it right, sitting right, breathing right... There are days when I can meditate easily for an hour and days when 20 minutes is hard to get through. I think that's really intriguing - the fact that every day is different. I have had so many insights while meditating. I like to mix it up. Sometimes I will use a guided meditation from someone like Tara Brach, sometimes I will use a mantra and sometimes I will only use the breath. It all depends on what I need that day. It's amazing and I wish everyone would do it. <3